Noise as a Weapon? Police Use of Sound Cannons Questioned

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A police officer with a Long Range Acoustic Device at a protest in Times Square. The use of such devices against protesters in 2014 is at issue in a federal lawsuit accusing the Police Department of excessive force.CreditCreditJohn Minchillo/Associated Press

The bulky black squares have been seen at protests in New York for years, sometimes hoisted on the shoulder of a police officer. Though they resemble heavy-duty speakers of the sort used to make announcements at high school football games, they are actually powerful sound cannons known as Long Range Acoustic Devices, or LRADs.

The police have often used LRADs to issue commands in an extra-loud voice. But the devices also have what the manufacturer calls a “deterrent” function. That was used during protests in Midtown Manhattan after a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict a police officer who had placed Eric Garner in a chokehold, killing him.

About 1 a.m. on Dec. 5, 2014, the police used a model called the 100X to emit a series of sharp, piercing beeps directed at people who in some cases were less than 10 feet away. Soon afterward, six of those who were nearby at the time and said they had developed migraines, sinus pain, dizziness, facial pressure and ringing in their ears filed a lawsuit challenging the police’s use of the device.

On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the sound it emitted could be considered a form of force.

The use of the device “as a projector of powerfully amplified sound is no different than other tools in law enforcement’s arsenal that have the potential to be used either safely or harmfully, one example being distraction devices — items like stun grenade, flash bang, or concussion grenades,” Judge Robert Sweet of Federal District Court in Manhattan wrote, adding, “It can be plausibly inferred that the use of a high-powered sound magnifier in ‘close proximity’ to plaintiffs was not appropriate.”

Judge Sweet dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims against William J. Bratton, who was the police commissioner at the time of the episode, and agreed with the argument by lawyers for New York City that the use of the device did not violate First and Fourth Amendment rights.

But Judge Sweet’s finding that the plaintiffs had a “cognizable claim” that their 14th Amendment rights had been violated, by an excessive use of force, means that their suit against the city and two members of the Police Department’s Disorder Control Unit can proceed.

“This is a decision that we are very proud of that we think has national significance,” Gideon O. Oliver, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, said, at a news conference on Thursday outside federal court in Lower Manhattan. “And it puts police departments on notice that they can no longer treat LRADs as glorified bullhorns.”

A Police Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

A spokesman for the city’s Law Department said by email: “The Long Range Acoustic Device is an effective and safe communication tool. We are reviewing the decision and evaluating our next steps.”

The device was developed in part as a response to a terrorist attack on a Navy destroyer, the U.S.S. Cole, off the coast of Yemen in 2000. It is capable of emitting sound bursts loud enough to repel potential attackers.

The Police Department first bought two of the devices in 2004, when the Republican National Convention was held in New York. The device’s shrill deterrent function was first employed by the police in Pittsburgh in 2009 during protests against Group of 20 meetings, resulting in a lawsuit that was settled without a ruling on whether the sound qualified as a form of force.

In a briefing written in 2010, the Disorder Control Unit said the device could produce a “piercing sound” that could “cause damage to someone’s hearing and may be painful.”

The model at issue in the lawsuit can be heard up to 600 meters (almost 2,000 feet) away, Judge Sweet wrote, and can produce a maximum continuous output of 136 decibels at a distance of one meter. The judge also wrote that when it was used during the 2014 protest, “the N.Y.P.D. did not have written policies and training materials in place for police officers using LRAD devices in the field.”

At one point during the protests, Judge Sweet wrote, “unidentified protesters threw objects, likely glass bottles,” while the police were making arrests. He added that the situation appeared to be “broadly in control.”

Two officers used one of the acoustic devices to order protesters onto sidewalks, but they also “employed the deterrent tone between fifteen to twenty times over a span of three minutes and at a rate that was ‘almost continuously,’” the judge wrote, adding that at points the officers used the device within 10 feet of the plaintiffs and angled it toward them.

One plaintiff in the case, Shay Horse, a photographer, said on Thursday that the sound that night was earsplitting and seemingly without respite.

“This is a sound version of a fire hose,” he said. “It’s like a noise flamethrower.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: Noise’s Use as a Police Weapon Comes Under Scrutiny. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe